Bylund's Central Points
This week Dr. Per Bylund, professor of entrepreneurship at Oklahoma State University, gave a lecture providing a case against intellectual property laws. Bylund takes issue with the system we have in our country that is designed to protect individuals creative ideas. Some of Bylund's main arguments against our current system:
- Ideas are not finite like physical property. Thus, intellectual property is fundamentally different from the generic definition of property, so it should not abide by similar rules.
- The protection of one's ideas is by definition not allowing another to profit off of similar ideas.
- These legal restrictions drive investment toward things that are patentable and away from those things that are not. This does not necessarily equate to true value though.
- Patenting and copywriting processes lead to decreased competition and consumer satisfaction as these restrictions alter the aim of corporations from producing the best product to producing a product they can copyright. Market forces and competition would be a better mediator to produce the optimal consumer satisfaction and innovation.
- Patents last too long and hinder production and progress in certain areas as they restrict further development of a product from outside sources.
Response to Bylund's Ideas
- Though I agree that intellectual and physical property differ from each other substantially, I still believe that both should be protected. If ideas, especially profitable ones cannot be traced back to their origin then in my mind there is less incentive for creation. Why have an original thought if you are unable to be rewarded for it. Why go through the work and investment in a product if you are not ensured that someone else, or a larger business with more resources than you could just steal it from you with no consequences. These laws, while restrictive, provide freedom for the individual creator and guarantee due credit in exchange for the information required for manufacturing and production.
- Patent and copyright laws do not restrict innovation on a product entirely. While the product is under patent, innovations can still be made by other parties, but there is a formal process for such improvements to be made. The original inventors permission is required, generally in exchange for a fraction of sales of the new, improved product. This also provides stability and ensures profit for the original inventor.
- There are many things that are not invested in that would lead to the more true value in society... the cause of that is not entirely because of intellectual property regulations. While a system where patents and protection may scare off investors from investing in areas where such protections are not available may be not entirely ideal, the alternative where no such protections exist is not a good alternative. The line of thought that investments without patents may produce financial hardship and legal battles so society needs to do away with these protections fails to seem reasonable from my perspective.
- While such regulations do cause a temporary monopoly to form, I favor this reality over the scene of someone making a groundbreaking discovery only for their work to be washed away in the wave of market forces that would be seen flocking to their idea. Improvements on products can still be made in this period as I briefly mentioned earlier, though there is a formal process for these things. Even with patent law, market forces are still in effect... though somewhat muffled through the system. Solutions to the same problems can be made with entirely different strategies, thus not enringing on the patents of each other, and a result would be competition still. Consumers are still the mediator of profit even if there is a patent on a product... market forces do not entirely disappear under the protection of ideas.
- There is certainly an argument to be made about the length of certain patents. Drug patents generally last two decades, and I am sure that there are similar lengths for other products on the market. I believe such periods could be shortened, producing lowered costs for consumers as well as more competition in production after the initial stage following a new invention. This could be a way of potentially reconciling the protection of individual intellectual property and profit, while not stifling innovation and compromising the long term satisfaction of consumers.
Thoughts on the Pharmaceutical Industry
Lastly, as a pharmacy technician and a student of medicinal chemistry I feel as though I am in a unique place to comment on the discussion of the pharmaceutical industry that was fostered during the lecture. Chemical patents, especially in respect to drug development, are of the utmost importance in my opinion. Pharma companies or biotechnology start ups go through excruciatingly long processes of first deducing possible drug molecules and strategies to synthesize them. After this process has been completed, a company will likely select one out of many molecules that they have been working on considering a variety of factors including synthesis methods, profitability, effectiveness and they will take the drug into clinical trials into which there are multiple phases of. Drugs must be proven to be pharmalogically effective and safe to be brought to market. At the end of all of this, the company has likely spent millions of dollars and at least a decade in the process of creating a novel drug. With such a large investment, it only makes sense for there to be laws preventing theft of synthesis processes and ideas. Without these protections it would be entirely too risky to try to develop new therapies. In some areas, I agree that big pharma companies do play tricks with patent law by using enantiomeric compounds or adding small groups on the side of molecules, but in some cases these changes do make large improvements on the pharmodynamic activity of a drug. Once a patent expires, generic alternatives are made available for a fraction of the initial cost of the drug. While not in entire defense of everything pharmaceutical companies do to make profits, I generally think much of the process in developing a drug is often overlooked. An argument can be made about shortening the regulatory monopoly period that such restrictions can lead to, but abandoning patents completely would result in a loss of innovation due to the high barrier to entry and the riskiness of investment in biotechnology.
Image Source
Graphic depicting the typical drug discovery process timeline. What is failed to be seen by the public a lot of the time is the behind the scenes work and investment that is generally put into the development of novel drugs.